


Dreamlight Sonata

by adamantCompulsions



Category: Homestuck
Genre: + a nervous wreck, Dancing, Extremely minor Scourge Sisters (pale), F/F, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Meteorstuck, SO MUCH FLUFF, So Is Karkat, Troll food, dave is a nervous boy, it's mostly just dave being a disaster, panquadrant, panquadrant relationship, panquadrantness, very very slight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamantCompulsions/pseuds/adamantCompulsions
Summary: Two emotional disasters try their best to dance with each other even though neither of them have any idea what they're doing.





	Dreamlight Sonata

It’s a perfect night. The dream bubbles in the distance remind you of candles, their multi-coloured incandescence reflecting off the meteor’s surface in warm, familiar colours that set the scene beautifully. When the trolls have finished their alchemised alien food, and you and Rose have stomached it with practiced tolerance, you’re not surprised when your sister offers her hand to the girl beside her. 

‘Care to dance?’

You gag and Karkat rolls his eyes at you.

‘It would be my pleasure.’

Rose and Kanaya are wonderful dancers, and the inter-dimensional cracks shimmering on the jadeblood’s ostentatious clothing make it all the more romantic. You whistle whenever Rose dips her partner, and Karkat tries (and fails) to stop you every time. You just laugh at him.  
Vriska and Terezi leave quite soon after the show starts, and you and Karkat aren’t really paying attention to it. Well, Karkat isn’t, and you’re sufficiently distracted most of the time by his profile as he looks up at the Furthest Ring, the closest thing to stars you’ll see in a long time. 

‘Aww.’ Your voice is dull and heavy with sleep as Rose and Kanaya’s slow waltzing finally comes to a stop. Rose smirks at you.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Dave. We’ll be sure to put on a more stimulating performance next time we have an audience.’

‘Phrasing,’ Kanaya says quietly with a sly smile, and Rose blushes. 

You tease her some more, but she successfully absconds to her room without too much of a fight from you.

You look at Karkat.

‘Want to watch another shitty romcom?’

‘Fuck yes.’

***

It’s late. Well, it at least feels late, even if “late” isn’t really an applicable concept in a place where time is meaningless. The rolling credits of the movie you were watching provide an uneventful backdrop to an even more uneventful night. Neither of you make a move to close the tab on Karkat’s husktop. You’re quiet until the final name drops.

You sneak a glance at him, consequentially at the exact same time he resolves to do the same thing, and you can’t hide a laugh and neither can he. 

It’s late, and it’s nice. 

You think about your sister and the troll she loves.

‘Hey,’ you start.

‘What?’ He fixes his wide pupils on you, like he actually cares what you have to say. You offer him your hand, adding a melodramatic flair to it in mockery of a girl who’s nowhere near your general vicinity. 

‘Wanna dance?’

He rolls his eyes at you like he couldn’t care either way, but he hesitates to reply. You can see him picking at the grey of his palm. He says that humans can’t have caliginous feelings, but you think you’re pretty black for that movement. Pressuring him about it, however, will only make it worse.

‘We’re alone.’ You hope you can ease his nerves. ‘No one can see us.’ 

‘Yeah, I know that,’ he snaps back, but it lacks passion. He gives in and reaches out, a slow movement, a nervous movement. He passes his worry onto you through his fingers. You stand up, and he follows suit.

You lace your fingers together and put your other hand on his shoulder. His free arm hovers, confused, near your body. You laugh at him, and he growls a bit. He opens his mouth to shoot some barbed comment at you, but you cut him off.

‘Here.’ You take his sleeve and tug it towards your waist, taking your hand away with hope that he’ll fill in the blanks. He does, placing his hand softly against your side, so softly it almost isn’t there. You’d be a hypocrite if you said anything about it; your other hand is practically floating, just like his, above his shoulder, worried to make contact with him, worried it’ll scare him off somehow. 

‘Okay, so, uh, you step back, I guess, and …’ you struggle for words as you perform what you assume is the first step to the waltz, following his foot with your own. ‘Um.’ You’re both slightly twisted now, awkward in each other’s almost-embrace, both of you confused as all hell. After a few moments of silence, he sighs. 

‘Do you have any idea how to dance, Dave?’

‘Hey, sorry if my main focus in life wasn’t to learn how to tango with an alien,’ you reply, and he groans, but his lip is twisted upwards. 

‘This is so ridiculous.’ He backs away, pulling his arm back beside him.

‘No, wait, we can do this.’ You grab his fingers again, grimacing inwardly at how desperate that looks, and put them back where they were. ‘Come on, please?’

He blinks at you, his black pupils wide and wet and shiny at the edges, and sighs. 

‘Fine.’

‘Yes!’ You smile at him, and the edges of his mouth slowly drift upwards like a delayed mirror. 

‘Okay, so, the waltz would’ve been more romantic, but turns out that’s not really my field of expertise -’

_‘Romantic?’_

‘-so we’ll try with like, the cha-cha. I think I learned that in school.’

‘Dave, Jesus, if you can’t dance, we can just not dance –’

‘No way, we’re the best motherfucking dancing queens on this whole damn meteor, I’m not about to be outranked by Rose goddamn Lalonde and there’s no fucking stopping us.’

‘What??’

‘Come on, step back again, and I’ll step forward, and then we go back to the start.’

He shakes his head, trying to stop smiling – why does he do that? His smile is great – and looks down at his feet as he complies. You do the same.

‘Yeah, alright, we’re doing it now.’ 

He huffs at you amusedly. 

‘Yeah, this dancing shit just runs through your veins,’ he replies, after you’ve both completed the first step.

‘I don’t know about that. I just kind of do what my feet want me to, they’re the captains of this ship. And what they want to do right now is the goddamn cha-cha. Come on, shift over, captain’s orders.’ 

You show him the second part, taking three steps to the left. Karkat’s biting his lip to keep from smiling. The thought runs through your head again; why does he do that?

‘You’re actually almost competent,’ he says to you.

‘Hell yeah I am. Being one of the last humans in existence really gets you thinking about this shit. Well, it gets your feet thinking. It makes the ship go into overdrive, if you know what I’m saying.’

‘Oh.’ He shakes his head in pseudo-disappointment. ‘We’re still on that metaphor, are we?’

‘Fuck yeah.’

You move your feet backward, inviting him to follow. ‘What the fuck was I expecting,’ he mutters to himself, stepping forward. 

‘No clue,’ you reply, and sway back into the right position.

‘Fuck,’ Karkat mutters as you both dance clumsily back to the beginning. ‘Your feet are freezing.’

‘Wow, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is.’

Karkat rolls his eyes. ‘You know I have fuck-all idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Yeah.’

He steps forward, and you step back. 

‘Okay, faster now.’

‘What? No fucking way –’

‘Oh come on, it’s not that hard.’

Karkat lets out a tiny breath, the ghost of a laugh that has yet to exist. He’s stopped hiding his smile, or he’s at least gotten worse at it.

‘Fine, oh my god,’ he replies through a grin.

You go faster, and then faster, and before long you’re sure you’ve both mangled this old Earth dance but you’ve mastered your version, and that’s good enough for you. You take three quick steps to the left, and you make a split-second decision. 

‘Dave, shit, what are you doing –’

‘Ah fuck.’

‘Wha – oh my god!’

You both fall heavily to the floor, and _Jesus_ you didn’t know candy-corn nubs could hurt so much. 

‘Dave, what the fuck was all that about?!’

‘Shh.’ You press a hand to his face, emphasis on ‘press’ as you use your grip to lever yourself upwards from the fuzzy locks of his hair. ‘Shhhh.’

‘Dave, oh my fucking god,’ Karkat growls at you. ‘You cannot be trying this now.’

‘Shhhhhh.’ You scrape your palm down his nose. 

‘This is not how this fucking works and you know it.’ His voice is muffled through the folds of your skin. 

You take your hand away and are about to go in for another one when he’s holding your wrist with an iron grip. ‘Dave.’ He stares at you. ‘What the _shit?’_

You laugh at him. You hate your laugh, but he always manages to drag it out of you. You roll over so your back is against the cold tiles of the meteor floor instead of the warm fabric that cloaks his body, and regret it immediately. 

‘I was trying to be romantic,’ you say, and he makes a couple of sounds that you’ve taken to interpret as ‘I have no idea what insult is best for this situation.’ Then he stops and just groans. 

‘Wait. Were you trying to do that thing Rose was doing with Kanaya?’

‘There were a lot of things being done with Rose and Kanaya,’ you reply, and he growls half-heartedly.

‘You know what I mean. The, ugh, shit, the … the tip thing. Is that what it was called?’

‘You mean the dip thing?’

He shrugs – while horizontal, somehow – and waves his hand. ‘Yeah, sure, probably.’

‘Then yes.’ You glance at him sideways. ‘I was trying to do that.’

Karkat makes a sound. It’s a weird sound, a mix between a growl and a laugh and a hiccup. He slaps his palm against his face, hiding his eyes but not the stretching, toothy grin he can’t keep down any longer. ‘You are so fucking ridiculous.’

You shift closer to him so your sides are pressed, hot, against each other. ‘You’re so fucking warm.’

He eyes you through his fingers. ‘What the fuck are you thinking, Strider.’

‘Nothing.’ You smile at him, as innocent as you can make it. You shift even closer, so you’re basically melting into him. 

‘Dave.’ 

‘What?’

‘Get the fuck away from me.’ He’s smiling so much it’s hard for him to talk, and his hand has drifted away from his eyes. 

You laugh at him a little, and roll over so you’re looking down at him again. You stare into his eyes; there’s a dark red twist to them, buried deep beneath the glimmering black, and it stuns you, stops you from doing what you wanted to do. What was that, again?

He makes that little sound again, that sharp, chuckling purr, and shakes his head. ‘Are you just going to stay up there staring at me, asshole?’

‘No,’ you say, but you don’t do anything. 

He huffs at you and pushes himself up, angling you more vertically and facing you almost at eye-level. 

‘Prick,’ he mutters. 

‘Yeah,’ you reply. 

He laughs and leans in. The only problem with this is that he closes his eyes.


End file.
